Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1887-06-23
Infamous and Suicidal.

An order has just been issued by the
Commander-iD-Chief of the Army of the
United States, Grover Cleveland, that
will incense the loyal people of the ma
tion even more than his vetoes of PEN
sion bills and his insults to crippled vet
Grams and their dependents. That order
is for the return to the Governors of the
late Confederate States of all the battle
flags captured by the Union armies in
the war of the Rebellionl That such an
order has been issued is shown by the
receipt of the following circular from
the Adjutant General of the Army by
Gov. Lee. of Virginia:
The President of the United States having
approved the recommendation that all the flags
in the custody of the War Department be re-
turned to the authorities of the respective
States in which the regiments which bore them
were organized, for such final disposition as
they may determine, l am instructed by the
honorable Secretary of War to make you lin
the name of the War Department. a tender of
the flags now in this Office belonging to the late
volunteer organizations of the State of Virgin
ia. In discharging this pleasant duty l beg
YOU to please advise me of your wishes in this
matter. 1t is the intention, in returning each
flag, to give its history as far as it is possible
to do so, stating the circumstances of its cap
ture and recovery.
This infamous scheme to rob the ma
tion of the trophies it won in subduing
armed treason has been conducted in the
dark, evidently with the purpose of con-
summating it before an amazed and in-
dignant people had an opportunity to
protest That a Democratic adminis>
tration should have sympathy with the
Confederate cause is natural enough, for
for every Confederate was a Dem
ocrat, and nile-tenths of the whole
Democratic party hoped the Confedera+
cy would win; but that the first Demo-
cratic President elected after the war
should take such step as we have in
dicated shows boldness in expressing
sympathy with the treason of the rebel-
lious States we did not expect to see.
These 1ags are part of the nations
heritage, and the President has no more
moral right to return them to the trai>
tors from whom they were taken than
he has to send back to England the
guns in our Public Square which were
captured by Perry on Lake Erie.
There appears to be just one more
thing for the Democratic party to do to |
complete its record on this question. Let |
it get the Senate and pass laws to pay
the Confederate debt and pension the |
Confederate veterans. The holders of |
Confederate bonds in London were evi
IDENTIFY posted when they advertised re,
Gently that the outlook for the payment |
of those bonds was better now than ev+
er before
If it had been asserted in the cam
paign of 1894 that Grover Cleveland, if |
elected, would have issued such an order,
it would have been uthoritatively de-
MED over his own signature in the most
solmn manner. or he would have been
defeated as badly as was Horace Greeley
in 1879. The Democratic organs would
themselves, in spite of their sympathy
with treason, have hooted at any such
charge as absurd, and the performance
OF such an act as unwarranted. We
them upon the thorough
and secret manner in which the Presi>
dent and his advisers have performed
the pleasant duty" of effacing as far as
possible the visible proofs of the triumph
of a loyal North over treason in the
South
From the patriot point of view the ac-
ton of the President is infamous; from
the political point, it looks like suicide
The act is one that cannot be forgotten
or forgiven by any Of the living who
fought and bled to win these trophies, or
the friends of those who died on the
fields where they were captured
Cleveland Leader. .